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Ej)f ^ast, ^rcsmt ana JFututf of Boston. 



SPEECH 



Hon. J. S. POTTER 



. Of ARLINGTON, 



ON THE SUBJECT OF 



UNITING CERTAIN CITIES AND TOWNS 
WITH THE CITY OF BOSTON: 



DELIVERED IN THE 



Massachusetts Senate, Thursday, April 24, 1873. 



PKINTED BY OKDEK OF THE SENATE. 



BOSTON: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, 

19 Province Street. 

1873. 



Cfjr ?Past, ^^trscnt aiifi iFiitutc at Boston. 



SPEECH 



Hon. J. S. POTTER, 

Of ARLINGTON, 



ON THE SUBJECT OF 



UXITING CERTAIN CITIES AND TOWNS 
WITH THE CITY OF BOSTON: 



DELIVERED lU THE 



Massachusetts Senate, Thursday, April 24, 1873. 



PRINTED EY ORDER OF TUE SENATE. 



BOSTON: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, 
19 Province Street. 

1873. 



24240 




t*b 



^ ':^^< 



,nX 



PEOCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 



Hon. Carroll D. Wright, of Middlesex, introduced the 
following Order which was adopted and then referred to the 
Committee on Printing. 

Com Bi ON WEALTH OF Massachusetts. 

In Senate, April 29, 1873. 

O/rZcrecZ, That two thousand copies of the speech delivered in the 
Senate by Hon. INIr. Potter, on the subject of the annexation of certain 
towns and cities to the city of Boston be printed for the use of the 
legislature. 

S. N. GiFFORD, Clerk. 



Subsequently the committee submitted the following Report, 
which was accepted, and the Order was then passed. 

Commonw^ealth of Massachusetts. 

In Senate, April 30, 1873. 

The Committee on Printing, to whom was referred the Order that 
two thousand copies of the speech delivered by Hon. Mr. Potter, on 
the subject of the annexation of certain cities and towns to the city 
of Boston lie printed for the use of the Legislature, report that the 
Order ought to pass. Per order, 

J. K. Banister. 



Senate, April 30, 1873. 
Accepted. 

S. N. GiFFORD, Clerk. 



ACTION OF THE COMMITTEE. 



On January 4th, Mr. Potter, on leave, introduced an Act en- 
titled " An Act to enlarge the territory of, and unite certain 
towns and cities with, the city of Boston." The towns and cities 
proposed for union under one municipalit}", were as follows : — 

The city of Chelsea and the towns of Winthrop and Revere, 
in the county of Suffolk ; the cities of Charlestown, Somerville 
and Cambridge, and the towns of Maiden, Everett, Medford, 
Arlington, Belmont and Watertown and Brighton, in the county 
of Middlesex ; and the towns of West Roxburj- and Brookline, 
in the county of Norfolk, 

The Bill was referred to the Committee on Towns, consisting 
of Hon. Martin Griffin, of Suffolk, Hon. Newton Morse, of Mid- 
dlesex, of the Senate, and BenJ. F. Hayes, of Medford, John 
Nowell, of Boston, G. P. Kendrick, of Worcester, N. D. Ladd, 
of Sturbridge, and George Purington, Jr., of MattajDoisett, of 
the House. 

On the 16th of April the committee submitted the following 
Report and accompanying Resolve. 



C M M O X AV F. A I. T II OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

In Senate, April 16, 1873. 

The Committee on Towns, to wliom was referred the Bill to en- 
large the territory of, and nnite certain towns and cities with the city 
of Boston, have considered the matter, and report the accomjianying 
Resolve. 

Newton Morse. 



Commonwealth of jNIassachusetts. 

Resolve in relation to uniting certain Cities and Towns with the Ciry 

of Boston. 

Besolved, That the governor, with the advice and consent of the 
council, appoint a commission, consisting of three able and discreet 
persons, to report, after due investigation, upon the practicability and 
expediency of uniting with the city of Boston, luider one municipal 
government, the following cities and towns : — The city of Chelsea 
and the towns of Winthrop and Revere, in the county of Suffolk ; the 
cities of Charlestown, Somerville and Cambridge, and the towns of 
Maiden, Everett, Medford, Arlington, Belmcmt and WatertoAvn, in the 
county of Middlesex ; * and what portitni of the territory of such 
cities or towns, or any of them, in their judgment it would be exjiedi- 
ent to so annex. Such investigation and report to include an exami- 
nation of the feasibility and policy of such a union ; the commercial, 
economical, industrial, sanitary and other considerations relating 
thereto ; the mode of consummating the same, if deemed practicable 
and expedient ; and whatever else may pertain to the municipal polity 
of a territory and people so connected and identified, as well with 
reference to their own good government and well-being as to the 
general welfare of the Commonwealth. 

Said commission may employ all necessary assistance, and shall 
rei^ort the results of their investigation to the next legislature, em- 
bodying the same in a proper lull, if they shall deem legislation ex- 
jjedient, and shall be allowed for their compensation and expenses 
such sums as shall be approved bj' the governor and council, not to 
exceed five thousand dollars. 

* The towns of Broolvline, Brighton and West Roxbiiry were not emln-aced in 
this Resolve for the reason that Bills providing for their annexation to Boston 
were presented to the legislature before the Committee made their Report upon 
this subject. 



SPEECH. 



Mr. President: 

There is no duty which I feel called upon to 
perforin that is to me more unpleasant than that of 
occupying a moment of the time of the Senate in 
explaining measures which impress me as being of 
public interest. But the Subject under considera- 
tion seems to me of such transcendant importance 
in its bearings upon the interests of the people of 
Boston and vicinity — and of the entire Common- 
wealth as well — that I trust I may be excused for 
asking the ear, and perhaj^s the exercise of the 
patience, of the Senate, while I endeavor to' present 
some facts and general considerations comiected 
with the past, present and future of Boston, that may 
be of possible value to those who feel an interest 
in the growth and prosperity, as well as in the health 
and happiness of the people of the metropolis of 
Massachusetts. 

The Kesolve reported by the committee provides 
for the appointment of a commission of three able 
and discreet men, vested with all the power neces- 



10 ENLAiaiKMENT OF THE 

s;n'\- to ('ii.'ililc llicin lo lliofouo-hly iiivcstig'ate the 
subject of uniting the city of Boston and the fif- 
teen cities and towns enimierated in tlie bill which 
1 laid before the Senate at the opening of the pres- 
ent session; and if the commission shall deem ex- 
pedient, they are authorized to prepare a wiser and 
more carefully considered measure for the consum- 
mation of such union. I would not have so great 
a reform hurried to completion with such rapidity 
that all necessary knowledge relating to it cannot 
be obtained, because wdien it is done, it should be 
well and properly done. I therefore cheerfully 
acce[)t the conclusions of the committee as lacing 
wise and prudent, and will proceed to present some 
reasons why the Resolve should pass, and why such 
union appears to me not only desirable, but an 
indispensable necessity. 

Sir, knowledge is the creation of industry ; — that 
is, it springs from an active body and an active 
mind. If that activity is compulsory, or the result 
of necessity, then knowledge is acquired slowly, or 
rather worked out through unseen difficulties by 
the hard and tedious process of unaided toil. Such 
is the experience, and such the school, of the pio- 
neei". But the sagacious and observing student 
Avho follows, will pursue the shorter and more di- 
rect path which is always before him. lie will 
''re:!]) whei'e others have sown.*" lie w^ill study 
the lessons of the past, and profit by the revelations 
.of (le])arted ages, lie will not permit the dust and 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 11 

cobwebs of time to conceal the obstacles which his 
fathers encountered or the errors which they com- 
mitted, but will behold the future by the light of 
their exjierience, and thus be able more wisely to 
measure its demands upon the present. He will 
look upon existence as a progressive fact, no more 
designed to halt upon the accomplishments of the 
hour, than was the revolving globe upon which we 
live designed to stand still. He will regard ideas 
as creations which are never to mature, and look 
upon them as the school-boy looks ujjon the ball 
which he begins rolling in the adhesive snow — as 
conceptions which are to grow with every revolu- 
tion they make through the force of mental and 
physical action. Ideas which spring from intelli- 
gent reflection are ever in conflict with those that 
are born of impulse ; and the government or the 
man that moves in dbedience to impulse, and acts 
only with reference to the exigencies of the hour, 
is simply placing obstructions in the path of prog- 
ress, which will surely retard, though never pre- 
vent, the inarch of the ever-coming future from 
sweeping such obstructions away; thus making re- 
construction and its attendant consequences of delay 
and heavy taxation a necessity and a burden upon 
the advance of civilization. 



12 ENLAKGEMENT OF THE 

THE EARLY DAYS OF BOSTOX AND THE ERROUS OF 
ITS FOUNDERS. 

Two hundred and fifty years ago an intelligent 
Englishman landed upon the shores of Massachu- 
setts Bay. His sagacity and good judgment in- 
duced him to select for his home a locality among 
the blueberry bushes and other shrubbery that 
covered the peninsula at the junction of Charles 
River and the waters of the harbor. Here, prefer- 
ring seclusion to society, that *" memorable man," 
William Blackstone, built a cottage, in which he 
w^asa solitary dweller for many years. In the 
meantime a flourishing settlement under Governor 
AVinthrop had been established opposite to his 
cottage on the other side of the river. In the year 
1630 many of the inhabitants of this settlement, 
which was called Charlestown, became sick and 
discontented. While their troubles were most 
pressing, some of their leading men rowed across 
the river and sought the counsel of the kind- 
hearted Blackstone. He recommended as a })ana- 
cea for their ills, even at that early day, — not ex- 
actly annexation, but the next thing to it, — that 
they should move over to " his side of the river." 
There was room enough to api)ly his remedy 
then, but not now. They followed Blackstone's 
advice. Governor Winthrop leading, his house 
having been first carried over for his accommoda- 
tion. 



TERIJTTORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 13 

Thus began the settlement which they " agreed 
to call Boston/' The city which has grown from 
this small beginning, has not yet honored in a 
becoming manner the name of William Black- 
stone, who discovered in the spot upon which it 
stands, with its surroundings, a locality wdiich, as 
I hope to show, has no parallel in the advantages 
which it presents for the prosperous existence of 
one of the most healthful and beautiful cities on 
this continent, or in the world. 

Here, at the base of the three promontories 
whose tops caught the refreshing breezes of land 
and sea, the followers of Blackstone and Win- 
throp moved forward with their incipient city. 
One w^ould have thought that the startling events 
which were at that time happening in the com- 
pact cities which w^ere being desolated with fires 
and plagues in the " Old World," with which 
they were so familiar, would have been efficient 
lessons to those wdio were laying the foundation 
of a new city, where land could be had for five 
shillings per acre. The handcart and an occa- 
sional passing team served the business demands 
of their day, and they constructed ways only wide 
enough for their accommodation. It is true they 
had come here to populate a new continent and 
inaugurate a work which would require ages to 
complete; yet the simple needs of the hour were 
their guide. They saw only that future wliich 
reached beyond this life to the shores of immor- 



14 EXLARGEAIENT OF THE 

talit3^ Tlierefore, they worked Avitlioiit plans, 
system or method. In laying out a city that was 
to l)e "built with hands" they permitted their im- 
pulses to seize upon the accidental cow path and 
the milkmaid's walk, and these they followed 
as leading suggestions. Thus, though pioneers of 
advanced civilization in a "Xew AYorld," they 
started with the most absurd errors of the ■' Old 
AVorld " in the practical business of laying out a 
city which Avould, according to every teaching of 
history, at some future date, not remote, be occu- 
pied by millions of people. Indeed, they do not 
appear to have measured at all the possible needs 
of posterity. For light, circulation of air, health 
and security from pestilence and conflagration were 
not catalogued in their minds as matters to be con- 
sidered in connection Avith the construction of a 
city. The exigency of the hour seems to have 
been their guide in practical affairs; and this 
most pernicious an(J evil practice has adhered, like 
a leech, to our state, city and town legislation 
down to the present hour. 

With an ever-growing intelligence, impelled by 
the activity and industry Avhich were characteristic 
of the founders of Boston, what result could follow 
such a policy? ^Yliy, then as now, every new 
year developed new conditions and new demands, 
for which the old one, for lack of ordinary fore- 
thoughl, had not provided. Thus began the woi'k 
of undoing, to correct errors, of pulling down and 



TEEEITORIAL AEEA OF BOSTON. 15 

builclmgnp, — resulting in a wastefulness of time and 
means Avhich has continued to the present time and is 
now in full operation. Mistakes even were corrected 
only w ith a view to meet the necessities of the time. 
The future seems never to have been provided 
for. And this state of things, which has been a 
perpetual drag upon the prosperity of the city, 
has been growing worse with the increase of popu- 
lation, until 

THE EXOEMOUS COST OF COREECTIXG PAST EEROES 

has become at the present day a serious burden 
upon the inhabitants of Boston and its vicinity. 
The founders of the city, and those who succeeded 
them, shut out the light and air of heaveu from its 
streets, which they huddled together in promiscu- 
ous confusion, in order that they might save a 
few feet of land which cost a farthing a foot. But 
the third generation following, with a view of 
providing for growing public necessities, has been 
obliged, not only to pull down and rebuild costly 
structures, but at the same time to pay from five to 
thirty thousand times that sum for the same land, 
now needed to double and treble the width of their 
original narrow and contracted thoroughfares. 
InTow, sir, this same confused system of planning, 
and this same short-sighted policy of the past, is to- 
day practised in portions of the city of Boston, and 
in all the cities and towns within the territoiy which 
it is now proposed to unite with it. The con- 



10 EXLAIJGEMEXT OF THE 

venie'DCo of the hour still appears to be the mis- 
chievous sentiment ruling in the council chamber 
and town meeting. 

If Senators will consult the records at the City 
Hall they will be astonished to learn that there are 
instances where streets have been widened two, 
three and even four times on the same line to 
meet the growing demands for room, and each 
time at a heavy cost to the tax-payer, when such 
changes would not have been necessary if the 
people and those in power had simply remembered, 
as I now" ask you to remember, that " the world 
moves,-' and has a future to provide for which 
should ahvays commend itself to the consideration 
of thoughtful law-makers everyw^here. 

Sir, if the present policy is to continue, no com- 
prehensive public improvements wull be possible, 
for the reason that all the revenue, and much more 
than is needed for such purposes, will continue to 
be swallowed up in correcting the errors, w^hich, 
under it, seem ever to follow in the track of state 
and municipal legislation. 

As an illustration of the prodigal effects of this 
" convenience-of-the-hour legislation," I will refer 
to but one of many examples. Hanover Street, 
w^hich was one of the paths where the milkmaid 
followed the tinkling bell of the "lowing herd,'' has 
been widened in some places two or three times, 
and yet anotlier widening has just been comi)leted, 
at a cost to the tax-payers and abutters of nearly 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 17 

12,500,000 more. I will not attempt to predict the 
period when another slice from the costly struc- 
tures that have been rebuilt upon this busy avenue 
may be necessary; but I will ask Senators to stand 
for a moment at any hour of the day, and view the 
active throng that already moves therein, when 
Boston has a population of only one-quarter of a 
million, and at the same time remember that the 
deep waters of her ample harbor bound this and 
other streets, now of less capacity, where the active 
commercial enterj^rise of the city must be forever 
carried on. For, while the city will rapidly expand, 
the harbor must ever remain substantially the same, 
till the pressure of a continent's exports necessi- 
tates the construction, in the rear of Charlestown, 
of vast docks like those of London. I will then 
ask you to pass over, in imagination, a period of 
fifty years, when the locks of the young'est Sena- 
tors at this board will be whitened by time and 
when the jDopulation of Boston will be ten times as 
great as now, with her industries multiplied by 
a still larger figure ; and then give your judgments 
as to the capacity of any or all of these avenues, 
as now constructed, to comfortably accommodate 
even a considerable fraction of the business that 
will then move to and from the teeming wdiarves 
and the railroad termini that must necessarily 
cluster about them. 

It is now fifty years since the city government of 
Boston was established. Since that time about 

3 



18 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

three hundred of her streets, lanes, and courts have 
been widened or altered to meet the demands of 
growing" business for more liberal accommodations, 
— making an average of almost six streets a year 
for the entire period. The total cost of these al- 
terations, including interest, has been a sum fully 
equal to the valuation of all the real property of the 
entire city fifty years ago. The loss to the people 
arisino: from their restricted conveniences for doing: 
business is another very important item which is 
not embraced in this calculation. 

During the last six years fifty-five streets have 
been enlarged; and the expense of this work, 
including the estimated cost for alterations on 
others which it has been decided to extend and 
widen, will amount to the startling sum of twenty- 
one millions of dollars or more. A little intelligent 
foresight in providing for the growth of the city 
would have saved the people of to-day from 
the burden of such a vast expenditure, which must 
now be borne alike by Boston and surrounding 
towns; for a resident of Maiden, Cambridge, Brook- 
line or Chelsea, who owns property and does busi- 
ness in Boston, simply has the privilege of pa}dng 
two taxes, — one, to defray the expense of the 
municipality which governs him while he sleeps, 
and another to the municipality wiiich governs him 
W'hile pursuing his business. 

;N^ow, sir, this sum, virtually squandered by the 
effects of the pmched and short-sighted legislation 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 19 

of the past would, if judiciously expended, have laid 
out and completed, within the same brief period, 
six spacious avenues, each six miles long and one 
hundred and forty feet wide, in different directions 
straight through the entire territory which it is now 
proposed to embrace within the limits of oxe city, 
allowing $300,000 per mile for construction, shade 
trees, and other ornamentations. In addition to 
these improvements it would have purchased for 
park purposes in different portions of this territory, 
three thousand acres of land, at $1,500 per acre, 
admirably adapted to such purjDoses. So that four 
parks, each nearly as large as the famous Central 
Park in l^ew York City, and all much nearer the 
centre of population, could have been provided for, 
and there would still remain nearly $6,000,000 with 
which to improve and beautify them. A sum, sir, 
just about equal to the entire expenditures for im- 
provements upon Central Park. 

Yauban, when speaking of the great French 
metropolis, as long ago as , the time of Louis the 
Fourteenth, said truly: "Paris is to France what 
the head is to the human body; it is the true heart 
of the kingdom." Believing that Boston does 
now, and will continue to occupy a similar relation 
to our old Commonwealth, and believing that 
whatever promotes the welfare and prosperity of 
the metropolis will be equally beneficial to the whole 
State, I feel justified in asking Senators if it is not 
time that some plan should be devised which will 



20 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

check tlic prevailing short-sighted system of huild- 
ing up only to ])iill down again, — whether more 
economical, because more comprehensive, legisla- 
tion should not be initiated, which will not only 
meet the exigencies of the hour, but which, observ- 
ing the rule of the past, w^ill intelligently measure 
the self-evident demands of coming centuries? 
The lessons of experience plainly teach us 

now TO AVOID A EEPETITIOX OF PAST EEROPtS. 

Ample territorial space for expansion is the 
first necessity, — to provide for it while it is com- 
paratively cheap is the first duty. The Resolve be- 
fore the Senate is a step in this direction. It pro- 
jjoses an intelligent and careful investigation of 
the proposition to enlarge the area of Boston by 
uniting with it the territory encompassed by the 
beautiful range of highlands that extend from 
Dorchester — wai'd sixteen — in the form of a cres- 
cent, nearly around to Chelsea, forming a perfect 
natural boundary to the- limits of the city. 

The territory of Boston is now shapeless. The 
State House and the bulk of the population are lo- 
cated in one corner of it. The exti*eme eastern and 
southern limits extend in a direct line about seven 
miles from the City ITall. If the area is extended 
in other directions, as proposed in the Metropolitan 
District Bill, which I had the honor to submit to 
the Senate, the plan of which is fully delineated 
upon the map now suspended in front of the presi- 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 21 

denfs chair, the State House Avill occupy a central 
position; the popuhition being about equally dis- 
tributed in all directions, from that point to the 
boundar}' line. 

The bounds of the old town of Boston extended, 
as now proposed, from Chelsea to Brooldine, and 
included both. Chelsea was set off in 1738, and 
Brookline in 1703, after prolonged opposition, be- 
cause of the inconvenience of having but one vot- 
ing place in the town, — and the area of Boston 
was thus reduced to less than seven hundred acres. 
The rapid growth of the cit}^ wdthin this circum- 
scribed space soon obliged its business men to 
domicile in various directions outside of its limits. 
The boundaries of the city have, however, from 
time to time, been extended, though Avholly in 
one direction, — Avhich accounts for the ridiculous 
and laughable figure it presents upon the map, — 
until its dimensions have increased about fifteen 
times, covering at this date an area of more than 
ten thousand acres. 

^ow this bill simply proposes to extend the 
limits of Boston east, north and north-w^est, so as 
to make the distance of its boundary lines in those 
and all other directions almost exactly what it now 
is in the south-east and south-west, taking Beacon 
Hill as a central point from Avhich to measure. 
The range of highlands which encircle this terri- 
tory forms a basin within which are located Boston 
and the fifteen smaller municipalities which it is 



22 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

proposed to unite with it. While this basin con- 
tains nearly the same number of square miles as 
Philadelphia or the city of London, it is of vastly 
better proportions, and is divided by three rivers, 
— the Charles, Mystic, and Maiden, — with a fourth, 
the ISTeponset — on its southern boundary. The 
city of Philadelphia covers an area twenty-three 
miles long and five and a half miles wide, and por- 
tions of her park grounds are more than twenty 
miles from the centre of population; while the 
outer limits of the territory covered by the towns 
and cities named in the Resolve can be reached 
within seven miles in any direction from the State 
House. There are, also, in different parts of it, 
six picturesque and delightfully situated little 
lakes, which will average in size more than one 
hundred acres each, besides four or five smaller 
sheets of water not less beautiful. These are all 
fed and kept pure by springs and the numerous 
streams that How down the sides of the extensive 
highlands that suri-ound them. 

Economy and good taste suggest that these 
sheets of water should be embraced in parks. The 
lakes in the great parks of other cities of the 
world, are artificial, and have been constructed at 
an inuiiense cost. Those in Central Park, Kew 
York, are located upon land once laid out into 
streets and lots. ^Nature has here provided larger 
and better ones — all easily accessible to the mass 
of the population; and, inasnuich as the great 



TEREITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 23 

ponds belong to the Commonwealth, they could be 
secured for public use icitliout cost, and would 
thus largely reduce the price per acre for park 
reservations. 

The chorography of the land is diversified, lacing 
hills, plains and slopes, the lowest of these — ex- 
cept a small tract of salt-water marsh — lying con- 
siderably above tide-water, thus affording supe- 
rior opjDortunities for economical and perfect 
drainage, — a consideration of the very highest 
imjDortance to a locality that is to contain, as this 
basin eventually will, millions of human beings, 
whose health should be the first thought of gov-' 
ernment. There are, too, some spots yet remain- 
ing where the natural forest growth has not been 
disturbed, and which would be of priceless value 
if they could be embraced in park reservations. 

Here, then, are all the elements of comfort, 
beauty, and health: the numerous slopes and 
plains, with their background of mountains and 
hills, and the gleam of fresh, sparkling, shining 
water ; and " water in the landscape," as has been 
said, "is like eyes in the human countenance, 
without which the countenance is lifeless." There 
are elevations upon these beautiful highlands 
from the top of which the visitor can look down 
upon forty cities and towns, and upon all the islands 
in our ample harbor, where myriad sails are waft- 
ing the commerce of the nation in every direction, 
presenting in the commingled works of God and 



24 KNLAKGK.MEXT OF THE 

man, a scene of iiiagnifieeiit grandeur ^vhich is 
not ii\al]((l l)y any other spot on earth. If m 
lliiropc, this locality would be renowned as the 
resml of tourists and sight-seers from every land; 
hut there is not one in a thousand of the popula- 
tiou of our own state that even knows of its ex- 
istence; yet, sir, it is within thirty minutes' ride 
from the steps in front of this chamber, and ought 
long since to have been an attractive spot in one of 
the parks of Boston. 

The most distant part of this territory is only 
about six miles from deep-sea water at the head of 
one of the most commodious and safe harbors upon 
the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and is the nearest 
convenient port in the United States to the markets 
of Em'ope. Could the hand of nature have planned 
a moi-e inviting locality for a city of vast popula- 
tion and boundless prosperity? 

To tliose who liave studied the characteristics of 
Boston and its environs, it has been a subject of 
wonder that all this area has not long ere this been 
embraced under one government, and subject to an 
harmonious and general system of improvement, 
directed by judicious and liberal nuniicipal legisla- 
tion. Who but those innnediately familiar with the 
fact, like yourselves, would believe that the most in- 
telligent and industrious people in the world, would, 
for nioie than two hundred ^^ears, have been content 
with being huddled together upon a narrow pen- 
insula, without taking the first step toward per- 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 25 

fecting some comprehensive arrangement which 
would secure, for the benefit of the popuhition rap- 
idly accumulating here, the remarkable advantages 
which the locality presents for an economical devel- 
opment of all that is useful, beautiful, and health- 
ful? Would you believe that a people willing to 
hazard the perils of a voyage across the Atlantic 
Ocean to see the gardens, parks, and boulevards of 
Paris, have not yet, with all their wealth and enter- 
prise, and vastly superior opportunities, planned a 
single one for themselves, even where nature has 
done more than half the w^ork; nor constructed a 
single spacious avenue, where there should have 
been at least a dozen, extending out in to the coun- 
try beyond the city limits? 

In addition to the peculiar advantages of her 
maritime location, Boston has nearly every other 
desirable requisite to secure unlimited prosperity 
for her people, except an abundance of territorial 
area within her own control, which should extend, 
not in one, but in every direction where her 
growth will be most natural. "Without this she 
must ever remain, w^hat in a business sense she now 
is, simply the ofiice, the salesroom, the storehouse, 
the bank and mainly the distributing point of ^N'ew 
England. The element that builds up and sustains 
the substantial growth of a great city is employment 
for the masses of its population that w^ill be certain 
and remunerative, and it is only by being relieved 

4 



26 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

from hor circumscribed limits upon a narrow pen- 
insula that 

BOSTOX CAN BECOME A GREAT MAXUTACTUEESTG 

CENTRE. 

To be something, more than a counting-room, and 
to support in a thriving condition the i)opulation 
that is rapidly gathering around her, she must rely 
upon and encourage manufactures. And these, 
to be prosperous, should be subject to one govern- 
ment and have a uniform system of care, taxation, 
and protection. Cheap building sites for mechanics, 
and eligible localities for their industries, though a 
sine qua non to the thrift and attractions of a great 
city, cannot be obtained or afforded within the pres- 
ent limits of Boston. And, sir, since land is abund- 
ant and accessible, and methods for cheap and swift 
transit in cities are being rapidly developed, I hope 
we have arrived at that point of sanitary knowledge 
and civilization which will hereafter prevent the 
poorer classes from being crowded into alleys, lanes, 
and narrow streets, where disease will be generated 
and epidemics revel.* For the reason that their 



* Thp followinf? is tlio dosinfi; y)ara<:;i'ai)li of an interesting paper, read 
at the Lowell Institute in 1870, by Fkan'cis Bacox : — 

" These cities of the future, with sunlight and fresh air and pure water 
coniiiij^ to every citizen; with no one standing in his neighbor's way; 
witli no noisome or pernicious occupation suffered within their 
limits; with all rainfall and water-waste carried (juiekly away to tho 
uuharmcil river, wliihi all other refuse, at once more dangerous and 
valuable, goes with due dispatch to the hungry soil ; with order and 
cleanliness and beauty in all, the streets; with preventable diseases jire- 
vented, and witii inevitable ones skilfully cared for; with the vigilant 



TEREITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 27 

fiimilies are generally more numerous, they need as 
much living room as those more favored with the 
means of obtaining it. And it is alike for their 
interests and the economy of the entire community 
that broad streets and open spaces should be pro- 
vided, so that under suitable regulations they would 
be induced to locate their homes where light, sun- 
shine, air, and the foliage of trees may ever exist to 
dispel miasms, and act as guardians of the public 
health. Such an arrangement would not only be 
more agreeable but much cheaper than providing 
poor-houses and hospitals, to be maintained at the 
public expense. 

The prosperity and Avealth of a state can be 
measui-ed by the amount of its manufactures ; and 
any legislation that will increase them is a benefac- 
tion to mankind. What has built up Philadelphia, 
with its monotonous surroundings, but its manu- 



government that does not stand apart and look coldly at ruthless greed 
and needy ignorance, and ntter only an indifferent 'caveat emptor,' 
but says to the butcher, ' This trichinous pork, this pathological beef, goes 
to the rendering-vat, and uot into the mouths of my children '; and to the 
brewer, ' Burn tliis cocculus indicus and lobelia, and let mo see no bitter 
but hops hereafter '; and to the apothecary, ' Successor of Herod, you 
shall not poison my infants at wholesale with your narcotic " soothing 
sirups'"; and to the water company, 'Your reservoir shows foulness 
this week to my microscope and my teSt-tube : let it continue at your 
peril.' These cities of the minimum death-rate, shall they not be our 
cities 1 Are these things of impracticable costliness, say you ? Nothing 
is so cheap as health ; it is the truest economy ; it is cheaper than dirt. 
' Dirt cheap '—what an abuse of language ! Dirt means waste and disease, 
death, widowhood, orphanage, pauperism, high taxation, costly produc- 
tion. Nothing costs so much. Besides, the objection [to cost] even if it 
were not unfounded, is unworthy. 'All parsimony in war is murder,' is 
a judicious maxim of the Mar<?chal de Bclleisle. Not less, I say, when 
we fight against an impersonal foe of mankind." 



28 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

factories and the fostering care the city has bestowed 
U[)on tlieniV AYhat has nearly doubled the prosper- 
ity and population of the great city of London in a 
single decade, but the productions that come from 
the busy hands of tAvelve hundred thousand artisans 
and mechanics? And what has made Pai'is the 
pride of France, and of the world, but the manufac- 
tories Avithin her limits, that furnish unceasing 
employment to more than six hundred thousand 
artisans? 

IsTow, sii", I hazard nothing in saying that not 
within the limits of either of these great cities, nor 
in any city upon this continent, do manufacturing 
advantages exist which will at all compare with 
those embraced within the surroundings of Bos- 
ton. Under the lead of science and inventive 
skill, Ave are rapidly approaching, if we have not 
already reached, the day Avhen steam-power at 
tide-water markets, convenient for export and 
import traffic, will, for all kinds of manufacturing 
jDurposes, be found more economical and profit- 
able than inland Avater-poAver, for the reason that 
the cost of railroad freights to and from the in- 
land factories Avill be greater than the cost of all 
the Avater-carried fuel Avliich may be necessary to 
generate the more certain and reliable power of 
steam. For instance, Avhy has the flourishing city 
of Fall Iviver advanced Avith such marvellous rapid- 
ity to the foremost place among the manuficturing 
localities of Xcav England? Iler location upon 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 29 

tide-Avater is the first reason, and the intelhgent en- 
couragement which has been bestowed upon her 
manufacturing industries by tlie people through 
lier local government, and by using home capital 
for the development of home interests, completes 
the answer. Here, too, may be studied with profit 
the influence of municipal power in shaping the 
industrial destinies, and promoting the thrift of 
masses of people. 

The waters of the Delaware and Schuylkill flow 
through Philadelphia, the Thames through Lon- 
don, and the Seine through Paris, while Boston, 
under the proposed organization, would have a 
tide-water front superior to either of them, upon 
which cargoes and supplies from all parts of the 
world could be carried almost to the factory doors 
without transhipment. In addition to this advan- 
tage, there will flow through the northern sections 
of the city the Mystic and Maiden rivers, and 
through the southern section the ISTeponset; while 
the larger Charles, with its tidal forces, ever act- 
ing as the purifier and sanitary agent of the great 
city, and coursing like the life-giving aorta, — not 
on the boundary, but as nature would have it, 
through the centre of the city, — sweeping into the 
sea all the sewage and putrescence which an im- 
jDroved system of drainage would pour into it. In- 
terspersed between these rivers are the nine little 
lakes and the numerous streams that feed them, so 
that here the morning and evening bells, or the 



30 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

slirillcr steam-whistle, would never want for power 
to sound the presence of countless industries. 

Hence, if the teachings of facts are to be our 
guide, I say that the years are not remote when, 
under a single system of government, and with 
appropriate state and municipal legislation, the 
Island Ward and the Peninsula or " Xorth End " 
of Boston and the banks of these rivers will be 
dotted with magnificent factory structures; and 
while the people who now throng the pinched 
and crooked streets of the northern portions of 
the city will be obliged to seek healthier homes in 
broader streets beyond the present limits of Bos- 
ton, new occupations for them will rise upon the 
places they vacate. 

But, it will be asked, how is the union of this 
territory with Boston to influence the introduction 
of new enterprises in arts and manufactures? One 
answer, among many, is, that the advantages which 
it presents for such purposes are not now known, 
and cannot be known while they are screened with- 
in a labyrinth of independent municipalities, all 
working at cross purposes, and each in its isolated 
character too small and Aveak to have an}'- local or 
general celebrity that will bring it prominently 
before the eyes of the public. They maintain in- 
dependent l)oundaries, it is true, and yet are so 
near to the city of Boston as to be almost entirely 
eclipsed under her shadow^, and, therefore, in their 
present position, neither enjoy the benefits of their 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 31 

own nor the individual characteristics of the greater 
city which they adjoin; and thus they are but 
obstacles to each other, preventing those improve- 
ments which would bring to light the peculiar ad- 
vantages of each locality, and in that way be so 
largely beneficial to all by attracting trade and 
capital from beyond the borders of the state and 
from other countries. 

The instincts as well as the intelligence of man 
invite him to go where the sources of attraction 
are, where evidences of enterprise and thrift exist, 
and where the senses are gratified by elements of 
beauty and comfort. The eye of the active, think- 
ing, inventive portions of mankind throughout the 
civilized world, is ever searching for localities where 
capacity may reap its reward, where capital and 
genius have an open and inviting field, and where 
opportunity and advantages will give industry a fair 
chance for success. That field is here, and this 
most desirable class of people will occupy it, if the 
scattered strength of the sixteen municipalities 
which now divide its jDOssession shall be united 
under one homogeneous, progressive, representa- 
tive government. With the markets of Europe on 
one side and a teeming continent with its produc- 
tions and demands upon the other, the hands of 
hundreds of thousands of artisans would never 
want for remunerative employment to make their 
homes happy and themselves contented. 



32 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

A IJAPII) (JROWTH OF CITIES IS OXE OF THE LAWS 
OF THE AGE, 

and the tendency of the people of the Xhieteenth 
century to concentrate in populous localities has 
become so marked that no intelligent observer -will 
ask for proof in confirmation of the fact. A wise 
foresight will make provision for this charac- 
teristic of the times, while it can l)e easily and 
economically done, and conduct it to grand and 
useful results. The increase in the population of 
cities in all civilized countries for the last tAvo or 
three decades has been from one hundred to one 
thousand per cent, greater, in proportion, than in 
the country districts. Glasgow is growing six 
times as fast as all Scotland; the rate of increase 
in London, as compared with the rural districts of 
England, is still larger; while Paris absorbs half 
the increase of all France. In Russia, when eman- 
cipation gave freedom to the serfs to go where 
they pleased, a law had to be enacted to gradually 
compensate the nobles for losses which they would 
sustain by the depopulation of certain parts of the 
country, on account of the eagerness of the i^eas- 
antry to move into cities and large towns. Com- 
pare the increase of the population in one of the 
best farming counties of Massachusetts — Franklin, 
for instance — Avith that of Boston and adjoining 
towns. The average increase for five years in 
Franklin County has been considerably less than 



TEREITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 33 

one per cent, annually, while in Boston and the 
towns proposed for union, the average annual 
increase has been nearly six per cent, or more 
than six times as great as in the farming region. 

THE CAUSES FOR THE GREAT IN-CREASE IJST THE 
populations" op CITIES 

over that of the country at large are almost too 
evident to need to be stated. The railroad and 
telegraph have changed the relations of communi- 
ties, and have virtually annihilated time and space, 
and made communication with the great cities so 
convenient to the rural districts, that the country 
tavern and the country stores have lost their local 
attractions and are rapidly disappearing, because 
the farmer who lives one or two hundred miles 
away, can seat himself in a comfortable car, and 
while enjoying his newspaper, ghde away to the 
city, buy his groceries and dry goods, and re- 
turn with the loss of less time than was occupied 
in the old-fashioned trip to the village, half a dozen 
miles from his country home. The itinerant agent 
of the city merchant makes a market for the prod- 
ucts of the soil almost upon the fields where they 
grow; and when gathered they are hurried away 
by the express freight train to the city for distribu- 
tion. The wife and daughter study the fashions 
at home and do their shopping in the distant city 
where the variety of goods is unlimited. The great 
superiority of the institutions of learning, and the 



34 ■ EXLAliGEMENT OF THE 

attraclions of music, lilji-arics, fine arts and amuse- 
ments in tlie city are drawing from the country 
large portions of all classes, especially the more 
wealthy, who desire for themselves and their chil- 
dren intelligent recreation and the best educational 
advantages. Every year adds to the eity new 
modes and conveniences for living. In this regard 
a degree of personal comfort is secured which can- 
not be enjoyed in the country. The inventive mind 
of man will not be less active in the future than it 
has been in the past; and by constant additions to 
the conveniences and comforts of living, the allure- 
ments and attractions of city life are likely to grow 
still stronger with every passing year. 

Avery intelligent Avriter in the Journal of Social 
Science, Mr. Olmstead, now President of the Board 
of Central Park Commissioners, and to whom I am 
indebted for many important facts, says : 

" Experiments indicate that it is possible to send 
heated air through a towm in pipes, like water, and 
that it may be draw^n, and the heat which is taken 
measured and paid for according to quantity 

required." 

A bill * has been before us and enacted during 
the present session, for the incorporation of a com- 
pany which proposes to generate steam at some 
central point and send it through pipes, in a simi- 
lar manner, to all who desire it, so that one only 
needs to turn a faucet to set the culinary depart- 



« Senate Document ?^o. 37. 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 35 

meat of the domestic establishment in full opera- 
tion without loss of time or the annoyances inci- 
dent to starting fires. 

Mr. Ohnstead again says: "It is plain that we 
have scarcely begun to turn to account the advan- 
tages offered to towns-people in the electric tele- 
graph; we really have not made a beginning with 
those ofl'ered in the pneumatic tube, though their 
substantial character has been fully demonstrated. 
By the use of these two instruments a tradesman 
ten miles away on the other side of a city, may be 
communicated with, and goods obtained from him 
by a housekeeper, as quickly and with as little per- 
sonal inconvenience as if he were in the next block. 
A single tube station for five hundred families, 
acoustic pipes for the transmission of orders to it 
from each house, with a carrier service for local 
distribution of packages, is all that is needed for 
this purpose."* 

This is not mere sentimental speculation, Mr. 
President, for just such conveniences are now in 
successful operation in some of the cities of Eu- 
rope, which are far in advance of American cities 
in other labor-saving and economical contrivances. 
Every invention for cultivating the soil and har- 
vesting and marketing its productions, — which en- 
ables one man to do the work of five, — sends four 
families into the city. A moment's reflection as to 

* See Appendix for Prof. Holtou's views upon the subject of compressed 
air. 



36 enlarge:\iext of the 

Avliat has been accomplished in the last twenty 
years, in the line of such improvements alone, will 
enable us to anticipate indefinite progress in this 
direction in the future, until the country districts 
will need only farm laborers and engineers to 
opei'ate the machinery which will perform the bulk 
of the work that is to be done. There can be no 
doubt, therefore, of the tendency, and the causes 
thereof, of the people of all civilized nations to 
congregate in great cities. 

A glance only at a few facts connected with this 
fruitful topic is all that is possible here. But I can 
safely say, there can hardly be a more important 
subject presented for your consideration, or that of 
legislatoi'S, state and national, throughout the entire 
counti-}-, than that which relates to the inevitably 
rapid growth in the population and wealth of large 
cities. It is not a temporary inclination of the times, 
for the causes producing it are as self-evident as 
sunlight, and there can be no reaction until books, 
newspapers, schools, churches, and all sources of 
knowledge shall be blotted out and the people de- 
generate into the condition of barbarism. Hence, 
T repeat, that a wise foresight will lose no time in 
making suitable preparation for this characteristic of 
the age. Ample territory should be embraced within 
the boundaries of a municipal power which will 
carefully consider and mature comprehensive plans, 
and establish the lines of its avenues, streets, squares 
and parks, making provision for health, convenience 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 37 

and beauty, while it can be clone at small cost, and 
done in such manner, too, that the people may know 
that they are not in a few years to be heavily taxed, 
as they now are, to correct the errors which a little 
timely reflection on the part of their law-makers 
would have rendered wholly unnecessary. 

Among other important measures recently intro- 
duced into the legislature of the state of l^ew York, 
is one providing for the annexation of some eight 
miles square of the lower end of Westchester County 
to the city of Xew York. This will make the city 
more than sixteen miles long, and will add im- 
mensely, not only to its population, but to the value 
of its real estate, especially in the upper portion, 
lying contiguous to the new quarter. The two 
great bridges now building across the East River 
w^ill ultimately bring Brooklyn, Long Island City, 
Astoria, and a number of other Long Island towns 
within its limits.* 

]S^ow, sir, the first conditions to be provided for 
in planning the future growth of Boston, are the 
health, the safety, the protection of property, and 
the education, morality and prosperity of its inhab- 
itants; and the first and most important duty 
is to 

PROVIDE FOR THE HEALTH OE THE PEOPLE, 

for without health, wealth and all earthly attrac- 
tions vanish, and life itself becomes a burden. 

* Siuce these remarks were made this measivre has become a hiw. 



38 EXLAKOEMEXT OF THE 

Xo one doubts but that the Boston of to-day is 
but a nucleus of an innnense city, that will extend 
hereafter over miles of the rural territory adjoining 
its present limits. He who looks into the future can 
see it with as much certainty as though it wei'e now 
in existence. iS^either will it be disputed that the 
average life of mankind in the compact portions of 
large cites is very nuich less than in the country, or 
in localities where sunshine and air have free circu- 
lation, and the foliage of trees and shrubbery is 
abundant. AVe have only to turn to the records 
of the scientific institutions upon this crowded pen- 
insula to learn that, in the closely built portions of 
a city, " a given quantity of air contains consider- 
ably less of the elements which must be received 
through the lungs, than the air of the country, or 
the air which is purified by foliage in the open places 
in the city; and that, instead of being healthful, it 
carries into the lungs highly corrupt and irritating 
matters, the action of which tends strongly to viti- 
ate the sources of vigor." So marked are these in- 
dications, that metallic substances corrode and wear 
aw^ay under the atmospheric influences in cities and 
toAvns that are compactly built, while they are but 
slightly affected in the pure air of the country, or 
in open spaces or around parks. 

Even in the time of Alexander the value of long, 
straight and broad streets, as ventilators of a city, 
were understood; but four centuries later, the 
founders of London laid out that city in such a 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 39 

manner that those who followed them, a dozen cen- 
turies after, found that the way in which it had been 
done was the cause of an amount of misery and 
waste of life and property which was appalling even 
to the civilization of the seventeenth century. They 
had no plan, and were governed by no law of the 
elements or of man, but proceeded, as Boston has 
done, in a desultory, " helter-skelter " manner of 
building upon accidental paths. They provided no 
squares, or parks, or breathing places, — their streets 
were narrow and crooked; and the results were 
sadly obvious in after-time."^ About every forty 
years, on an average, from 1318 to 1666, the city 
was scourged with plagues and devastating epi- 
demics. On each of these dreadful occasions all of 
the people who had adequate means moved into the 
open suburbs to escape the destroyer. ]S^ow and 
then a conflagration would sweep away acres of 
buildings, and thus open " breathing places " which 
purified the atmosphere and i"estored health to the 
surrounding population. Still they went on build- 
ing as before, not heeding the lessons of their ex- 
perience any more than Boston heeds her own, until 
the period of the great plague in 1665, when the 
inarch of fatality through their narrow thoroughfares 

* " streets ■svere by preference narrow and crooked. Houses nii"-ht 
■crowd against each other, and encroach npon the streets, and throw out 
overhanging balconies and oriels and turrets, and rise to the height of 
a dozen stories, until the threadlike alleys below were completely shut 
in from sunlight. But with the city wall once built, no lateral expansion 
was possible for generations, or perhaps for centuries. These were the 
Ixauuts of the luodheval pestilences." — Bacon. 



40 ENLARGEMENT OF TIIE 

was SO sweeping that the Hving were not numerons 
enough to bury the dead; and more than one hun- 
dred thousand citizens of London were hurried into 
eternity in a single year. And then, as if the un- 
seen Power intended to make the warning against 
the violations of natural laws in the construction of 
their city still more impressive, the following year 
four hundred and thirt^^-six acres of the crowded 
city, covering four hundred streets, and embracing 
tliirteen thousand dwellings, were converted into 
ashes in a few hours by the flames of a single con- 
flagration. What a sacrifice was this to the Moloch 
of ignorance and human folly! The lesson which 
it teaches is still before us, unlearned, and may yet 
be studied with benefit to the civilization of the 
nineteenth century. 

Then it was, before the fire was yet subdued, 
that the great and distinguished architect, Sir 
Christopher AYren, prepared an economical and 
simple plan for avoiding former evils in the con- 
struction of the city. His recommendations were 
promptly approved by the king and the wise and 
reflecting men of his time; yet the difficulties of 
equalizing and adjusting benefits and damages 
among the owners of the land were so great, that 
the improvements sought to be introduced were 
but partially adopted, and these at an enormous 
cost to the tax-payers of the unfortunate city. Do 
Senators remember whether any part of this history 
has been recently, and is now being repeated in 



TEERITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 41 

Boston? And if the terrific admonitions of history 
have failed to impress the local community with the 
necessity of at least attempting, in the interest of 
ethical duties and social happiness, to apj)ly a 
remedy, cannot something in the way of state legis- 
lation be suggested or adopted, which, all other 
means having failed, will ajDpeal to popular selfish- 
ness by demonstrating it to be for the pecuniary 
interests of the people, to no longer plan as if the 
duration of this world and all happiness was to ter- 
minate with the brief period of their own lives. 

Mankind has, however, gained something from 
the terrors of the pestilence that nearly depopu- 
lated London in the seventeenth century. It was 
discovered that the people who fled to the open 
country beyond the city limits were not affected by 
the dread disease, and therefore those who could 
aff'ord the means reserved open spaces around their 
dwellings. The more wealthy located their dwell- 
ings around an open field, where trees were planted 
and shrubs and flowers were cultivated. Squares 
and parks were thus introduced, and London now 
has more than four thousand acres where sunlight 
and air and foliage have uninterrupted freedom to 
perform their beneficent mission of dispelling the 
miasms that arise from the more crowded sec- 
tions of the thronged city. Since these progres- 
sive steps were taken, no plague has visited the 
great metropolis. 

But we are in the midst of home events and 

6 



42 ENLAKr,F,:Mr>NT OF THE 

facts whose teachin*:^ are not less important and 
strikiii*^-. Til order to ascertain the comparative 
mortahty of various quarters of the city of Boston, 
Dr. George Derby, tlie very able and efficient Sec- 
retary of the State Board of Health, in 1870 divid- 
ed the city into twenty-four health districts, each 
comprising either an entire ward or part of a ward, 
or parts of two or three wards — the objects of this 
division being to group together a population sim- 
ilarly situated as to the conveniences and comforts 
of life, — those in the best circumstances in separate 
districts from those living in unwholesome dwell- 
ings, and in circumstances of comparative destitu- 
tion. Each district contained, as far as possible, a 
population similarly situated as to surroundings, 
and conveniences of living. 

The population of each district, at all ages, was 
obtained through the census, taken in 1870, by per- 
mission of the United States government, and the 
deaths at all ages in each district, for the same year, 
were obtained from records at the City Hall. With 
these elements some very striking results w^ere ob- 
tained, which were published in the Second Annual 
Report of the State Board of Health. For in- 
stance, the death-rate (/". e. the annual number of 
deaths to every 10,000 of population) ^ aries from 
57 in the most favored district, to .')79 in the most 
unhealthy, — a dilference of nearly sevoi to one! 
The smalk'r ratio of mortality just named, 57, w^as 
in tlie new Back Bay territory, Avest of Common- 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 43 

wealth Avenue, and adjacent to the Pnhlic Gar- 
den, the Common and the broad avenues where 
sunhght and air and the foliage of trees are most 
abundant. In Roxbuiy Highlands, the next most 
favored locality, the ratio was 91, and in the dis- 
trict covering the Back Baj^ east of Commonwealth 
Avenue, it was 98 to each 10,000 living. 

It was 112 in the east half of ward eleven, 152 in 
the district comprising the best part of ward four, 
and 156 on the south side of Beacon Hill, includ- 
ing Beacon, Mt. Yernon and Pinckney streets. In 
ward sixteen (Dorchester) the death-rate was 
163. 

The foregoing may all be considered as the more 
favored localities, for the deaths are less than the 
average mortality of the state, which for the last 
seven years was 176 in 10,000. 

^^e come next to districts in which the mortality 
exceeded the just quoted mortality of the state. In 
the Suffolk Street district the mortality was 177 to 
each 10,000; in East Boston, 187; in ward fourteen, 
188 ; in ward eight, 195 ; in ward ten, 201 ; also in 
the Church Street district, 201. 

But in the regions filled with a foreign-born 
population, crowded into tenement houses in nar- 
row streets, and otherwise living under conditions 
less eligible than in the districts already named, 
we find the death-rate surely and rapidly increas- 
ing. In South Bston, the rate averages about 256 
in 10,000; in ward thirteen, 253; in ward four, 



44 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

about Portland Street (formerly the old n^ill pond), 
267; ill llic South Cove land, m ward seven, 273. 

I'lu' mortality at the Xorth End, the most 
thickly settled part of the city, is still greater. In 
ward two, it was 296. This is exceeded only by 
one district in the city — the most unhealthy of all 
— namely, in the low lands of ward fifteen, Avhicli 
are inhabited by a mixed population. The death- 
rate here was enormous, being 379 in 10,000. The 
mortality among infants varies exceedingly with 
the location and suri'oundings, and forms a very 
large part of the mortality. 

In a district including a part of ward four, nearlij 
half of the whole number of inftmts died (to be 
explained in part, hoAvever, by the existence of an 
infantile boarding-house therein) . 

In the South Boston districts, and in the district 
inhabited by the colored population, more than 
one-third of the infants died. But in Roxbury 
Highlands, where the total deaths were 91 in 
10,000 only, the mortality among infants was less 
than one-tenth, a difference of nearly five to one, 
as compared with ward four, where the population 
is most dense. 

" The death-rates of East Boston and the ^orth 
End," says Dr. Derby, " present a contrast which 
is worthy of examination. These districts are of 
nearly equal population, and the numbers at all 
ages very nearly corresj)ond, yet the mortality in 
one is half as great again as in tlic other. One is 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 45 

crowded, in great part deprived of sunlight; the 
other has abundance of light and air." " Can a 
stronger argument," he says, " be offered in favor 
of providing breathing spaces for the people?" 

In the towns and cities proposed for union with 
Boston, the average number of deaths for seven 
years was only 155 in 10,000, while in Boston and 
Charlestown combined they were 209^^, showing 
the deaths to be nearly 30 per cent, less in the 
more open adjoining towns than in the two crowded 
cities. 

Thus, from authentic calculations, the causes 
which promote a high degree of public health, and 
the causes which produce disease, sickness and 
death, have been clearly shown, and it is proved 
that both are largely within human control. From 
the unquestionable authority adduced, it will also 
appear to what extent the municipal power of a 
city is responsible, not only for the comfort and 
happiness, but for the health and lives of its popu- 
lation ; for it has been demonstrated, by uncontro- 
vertible facts, that where ample territory is avail- 
able the city can be made, if properly laid out and 
cared for, and subject to one power and one sys- 
tem of government, even more healthy than the 
average of country life.* In the broad avenues and 
in the streets that border on the Common and the 

* " It is clear that the great city of tlie future is to be a place where 
life is as long and as secure as anywhere else, and where physical de- 
velopment and health is as great in degree, however it may diifer iu 
kind, from that of the agricultural regions." — Prof. Francis Bacon. 



4G ENLAROEMEXT OF THE 

little Piil)llf Garden adjoining it, the annngl deaths 
avei'ai;e only fifty-seven in 10,000, while in the 
whole state the average is 176, or three times as 
great. In other portions of the city, not less favor- 
ahhj located, but which have not been pei*mitted 
to enjoy the health-giving advantages nature has 
2^rovided for all, the deaths are 379 in 10,000, or 
nearly seven hundred per cent, larger than in the 
open and cleanly localities. 

l^o^^\ Mr. President, if the death-rate in a con- 
siderable portion of a city is very much less than 
the average in the whole state, shall it be said that 
under the lead of modern science, the people re- 
fuse to secure the means for maintaining at least 
an equal degree of health in those portions of the 
city that are to be hereafter constructed? Is human 
life so cheap that the law-makers will disregard 
these facts? Yet, wdien it is proposed to initiate a 
step that makes it easy to secure such result it is 
characterized as " sentimentalism " or " speculation." 

Sir, there are some so wa-apped in ideas of specu- 
lation that they think of no other rule by which 
to measure the motives and actions of others but 
that which governs themselves, and, unlike Macbeth, 
behold it even in the vacant eyes of the walking 
nightmare that haunts their vision of gain, — those 
who, measuring life and duty by the rule of dollars 
and cents, would, if they had the power, bottle up 
the free air of heaven, and i-etail it to a gasping 
public lor a pecuniary consideration. 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 47 

" Spec^ation " lies not at the foundation of this 
plan, but may follow those who favor annexation in 
a most objectionable form, — the piecemeal process — 
that diverts legislation from the greater good of 
the masses to the aid of the few who would con- 
centrate in particular localities the benefits arising 
therefrom; thus delaying and therefore doubling 
and trebling the cost of those essential public im- 
provements wdiich should be accomplished only 
upon the basis of an equality of benefits among all 
the communities whose situation, with reference to 
the subject, is substantially the same. The object 
of legislation is justice, and the promotion of the 
greatest good for the greatest number; and upon 
this theory it becomes the duty of the state to inter- 
pose its power in shaping the future of its metropo- 
lis, so that the best interests of all its citizens may 
be promoted. 

The propositions embraced in the Kesolve have 
to do with the serious business of providing not 
only for the prosperity and comfort of millions of 
people who are to come after us, but for the pre- 
vention, also, of a useless sacrifice of life and 
health. 

I commend to legislators, whose duty it is to 
guard the public welfare, some startling facts de- 
veloped in the report of the Board of Health of 
the present year, which has just been laid upon 
Senators' desks. If it shall be found that the 
death-rate, independent of the increase arising from 



48 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

the .sinall-])ox epidemic, is twenty-five ]^v cent, 
larger than the preceding year, there is a cause 
for it ; and it is for them to say whether the proper 
sanitary condition of the city can be restored and 
protected short of a complete reorganization of the 
system of drainage and surface imjirovements in 
the territory entirely surrounding the present limits 
of Boston. An improved system of drainage will 
be one great remedy for existing evils; another 
and more complete one may be found in the es- 
tablishment of 

P^UIKS, SQUARES, AKD BEOAD AVENUES, 

which are essential to the preservation of health in 
all great cities.* An intelligent writer and excel- 
lent authority, in commenting upon the necessity as 
well as difficulties of making suitable provisions for 
securing the health of the people who are rapidly 
filling up the great cities of the world, says : "Air 
is disinfected by sunlight and foliage. Foliage also 
acts mechanically to purify the air by screening it. 
Opportunity and inducement to escape at frequent 

* All ciniiuMit pliysician in New York City, in speaking of the influence 
of Central Tarlv in promoting public liealtli, says : — 

"Where I formerly ordered patients of a certain class to givi- up their 
bnsiueHs altogether and go out of town, I now often advise simply mod- 
eration, and prescribe a ride in the park before going t(j their oftiee.s, and 
again a drive with their families before dinner, liy simply adojitiiig this 
course as a habit, men who have been breaking down frequently re- 
cover Iniif rajiidly, and arc able to retain an active and controlling iii- 
llueiice in an important business, from w Inch they would have otherwise 
been forced to retire. I direct school-girls, under certain circumstances, 
to be taken wholly, or in part, from tlieir studies, and sent to spend sev- 
eral hours a day rambling on foot in the park." 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 49 

intervals from the confined and vitiated air of the 
commercial quarters, and to supply with air screened 
and purified by trees, and recently acted upon by 
the sunlight, together with opportunity and induce- 
ments to escape from conditions requiring vigilance, 
wariness and activity toward , other men, if these 
could be economically supplied, our problem," he 
says, "would be solved." 

There is no locality where all the conditions so 
abundantly exist for solving the problems that are 
now being discussed in connection with the growth 
of cities, as in Boston and vicinity. That they have 
not been long since solved here, and Boston placed 
in the front rank of the healthiest 'and most beau- 
tiful cities in the world, is because the people 
have not accepted the offers presented by the gen- 
erous hand of nature. 

It is of the highest importance to preserve within 
the limits of a city, for purposes of health and 
beauty, as much of nature as possible. Trees, 
shrubs, and flowers were created for highest use- 
fulness, and, wherever permitted, are constantly at 
work in the service of man ; and whenever man 
attempts to exclude nature and her laws from his 
plans, he is sure to do it at a costly penalty. Light, 
a free circulation of air, and the purifying influence 
of foliage, are now admitted to be indispensable 
requisites to public health. To have these in abund- 
ance in the residential portions of a city, there must 



50 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

be Ijroiid avenues, with broad sidewalks, lined with 
vigorous shade-trees.* 

There must also be open spaces or parks where 
men, women and children can indulge in those rec- 
reative sports and enjoyments that conduce so much 
to the health, vigor, morality and manliness of the 
people ; and these parks should, if possible, contam 
sheets of water where saihng, rowing and other 
aquatic enjoyments can be freely indulged in by all 
classes of people, f There should, also, be numer- 
ous bathing-places to promote cleanliness, and, 
therefore, godliness. 

Observe the location of city school-houses, four 
or live stories high, crowded into narrow streets, 
where neither sunlight nor pure air can reach them. 
At recess, when the pupils are allowed a few mo- 
ments to escape the confined atmosphere of the 
building, they are sent out out into "pens," en- 
closed by high w^alls and paved with brick. Sir, I 
will venture the opinion that from two to five years 
wonld be added to the average fife of the native 
population of cities, and the mortality among school- 
children be largely reduced, if public educational 
structures were required to be built not more than 
two stories high, and each located upon a two-or- 
three-acre park. And then, if fewer hours of study, 

- TlH. U'l." th of tl.o pav...l stn-c-ts in Paris is about 340 iiulos ; 225 miles 
of th.s.. streets were, i.rcvi..us to the sioye of the city by the Prussian 
army in IHTO, lined with trees, gardens and planted stiuares. 

t Crieket and l.ase-l.all elubs are acc<mnnodated in most of the London 
l,arka, and sNvimming is permitted in the lakes at eertain hours. 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 51 

and more hours of out-door physical exercise were 
required, a more handsome, vigorous, healthy and 
intelligent race of men and women would surely 
follow, ^o higher service could be rendered the 
state and humanity than an effort to accomplish 
such a result, which is only possible where there 
is ample territorial area under the control of one 
system of governmental authority. 

A dozen broad avenues from * 12o to 200 feet 
wide radiating in different directions from the com- 
pact portions of Boston, through the territory which 
it is proposed to unite with it, should have been 
constructed years ago, so that the country air, ever 
fresh and pure, from the green hills beyond, could 
sweep without interruption to the crowded marts 
of commerce. :N"ear deep water and the railway 

* The Avenue de rimperatrice, in Paris, leading to the Bois de Bou- 
logne, is bordered by continuous gardens ; inside are carriage-roads, and 
beyond gardens and alleys. Its width, 429 feet, is thus distributed :— 

Carriage-way, 50 feet. 

Footpath, on one side, 36 " 

Horsepath, on the other side, 36 " 

Grass and shrubbery, 87 " 

" " " ' ". '. 87 " 

Iron railing. 

2 small streets, on each side of which four sidewalks, 20 feet, 61 " 
Iron railing. 

To Ime of houses, 36 " 

.' .* ! 36 " 



Total, 



429 



The width of the Avenue Xenilly is, 231 " 

" " " " Vincennes is, 231 <s 

" " " new Boulevard Malsherbes is, . . . 195 « 

There are 21 or 22 of these lu-oad boulevards in Paris. They vary 
much in width, but nowhere are they less than the preceding. 



52 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

centres, where the bulk of trade must be carried on, 
broad avenues are not practicable, and perhaps 
not desirable, except an occasional one, as great 
thoroughfares or outlets from the more crowded 
localities. Such, however, with an occasional square 
in the business sections, are indispensable, not only 
as " breathing-places," but as checks to the spread 
of great conflagrations. Yalues to the amount of 
1100,000,000 were consumed in the fiery blast of a 
few hours' duration in :N'ovember last ; and let me 
say, just here, it might have been two or three or 
four hundred millions but for the accidental exist- 
ence of one small open space, which the battling 
firemen could safely trust to check the march of the 
storm of flame in that direction, while they could 
marshal their forces and interpose a united will 
against its spread in other directions. The remem- 
brance of the spot where stood historic old Fort 
Hill ought to be an ever-present witness here and 
in the Municipal Council Chamber to remind us all 
of the priceless value of an occasional square and 
broad street, even in the commercial quarters of a 
great city. These cannot be secured without ample 
territorial area under the control of a single muni- 
cipal power. 

These are the outlines of the essentials, as every- 
body will agree, for the foundations of a great city; 
and they are all embraced within the territory which 
it is now propsed to unite under one government. 

Land upon this territory to the amount of at least 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 53 

three thousand acres should be secured as park 
reservations, so located in different portions of it, as 
to be conveniently accessible to the people. The 
municipal authorities of nearly all the large cities 
of the Avorld now admit their irreparable error in 
securing park lands too late to bring them as near 
to the centre of population as they ought to be for 
public recreation and health. Their mistakes should 
teach us wisdom. When this is done the entire 
territory should as speedily as possible be laid out 
into squares, avenues, streets and boulevards, and the 
lines permanently established, so that the future of 
the territory and the plans for its improvement 
could be correctly understood. There would then 
be ample opportunity for the exercise of public 
taste in the selection of locations for residential 
improvements, and the moment the lines were 
established, the plans for private construction 
w ould necessarily conform to them. 

It is estimated that the income accruing from the 
rise and increase of taxable property would more 
than pay for all expenditures necessary for laying 
water-pipes, draining, grading, constructing streets 
and improving and beautifying the parks ; for work 
upon these would be prosecuted only as fast as 
private construction Avould demand. 

The establishment of Central Park, Kew York, 
was the result of a legislative mistake, l^o such 
magnificent work was at first intended; and when 
the plans of the commissioners, who happened to 



54 ENLARGEMENT OF TUE 

130 ext'cUcnt men, were made known, they were 
denounced hy the authorities, the press, and the 
pubUc generally, and, during the first three years 
of their service, they were caricatured and ridiculed 
on all sides, and, as you will remember, were once 
or twice mobbed. But they pushed on rapidly, 
working, for a time, night and day, in order to at- 
tain so much progress that the work could not be 
stopped. To-day there is not a voter in Xew York 
City who would not, if necessary, imperil his life to 
prevent that great work from being undone. Owing 
to the original barrenness of the land, the cost of 
Central Park has, from its origin, been large, — being 
nearly $12,500,000, including cost of land, up to 
the present time. 'Not taking into account its 
invaluable contributions to the health and pleasure 
of the people, it has more than paid for itself from 
the income of taxable property which it has created 
around it, and tlie city now receives from this source 
an annual income of |2,726,595, after paying in- 
terest on the total cost of land and all improvements 
up to this date. And yet it has but few of the 
natural attractions and advantages for economical 
construction which exist on the territory around 
Boston, and which is also much nearer the heart 
of population: the northern boundary of Central 
Park is eight miles from Wall Street, while the 
reservations here need not average more than 
four miles from the State House. 

The advance in value of real estate around the 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 55 

park has been at the rate of 200 per cent, pei' 
annnm.* It is also estimated by the commissioners 
that the entire cost of the park has been much more 
than repaid by the additional capital drawn to the 
city through its inflnence. Abont ten million people 
annnally visit the park, and yet there is not one 
steam railroad reaching its bonndaries, while there 
are twelve or fourteen different steam roads extend- 
ing throngh the territory which it is proposed to 
unite Avith Boston, where parks would undoubtedly 
be laid out, should it be under the jurisdiction of 
one municipality. 

Sir, are improvements such as I have attempted 
to describe, and which will promote the health, 
prosperity and all the higher elements of society 
and good government, desirable in connection with 
the growth of the metropolis of Massachusetts and 
^ew England? If so, can they be successfully 
inaugurated without placing over all the cities and 
towns on this territory a government which will 
unite the scattered interests of the people under 
one homogeneous municipal power? A negative 
answer may be inferred, — first, because though 
there are now nearly half a million people residing 
on this territory, no such improvements exist; and, 
second, because Boston is behind, far behind every 



* "Land immediately about tlio park, the frontage on it being seven 
miles in length, instead of taking the course anticipated by those op])osed 
to the policy of the commission, has advanced in value at the rate of 
tivo hundred pur cent, per aunum." — F. L. Olmstead, President Board Central 
Park Comminnioners, Journal Social Science, 1871, 2>, 35. 



5(i EXLARGEMEXT OF THE 

other large modern city in securing them ; and, to 
her dishonor l^e it said, has never added any park 
grounds to the " Old Common " which the residents 
of the little village of Boston reserved for them- 
selves more than two hundred years ago. 'New 
York has eleven hundred and Philadelphia more 
than three thousand acres of park grounds. 

ISTow, sir, while the interests of these sixteen 
municipalities are identical and centered in one 
locality, they seek prosperity under independent 
governments. If the OAvner of a fine ship should 
load that ship with a valuable cargo for a trading 
venture, and place sixteen captains on board with 
equal powers, directed to go where in their judg- 
ment they could realize the greatest success, there 
would, of course, be a mutiny among them before 
she left her moorings, and the enterprise would 
fail until there was a consolidation of authority, 
and, under command of a single power, her course 
should be fixed and her sails spread to the breeze 
that would speed her on a prosperous voyage. 
Human nature is the same on the land as on the 
sea, — the same among diff*erent local governments 
as among difi'erent men, — and no plan for a com- 
prehensive system of improvements among this 
cluster of municipalities upon a scale at all com- 
mensurate with the demands of their population, 
can be projected without coming in contact with 
local jealousies and confliciing ideas and interests 
which hinder the progress of all. 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 57 

Charles-river Basin, for instance, which is 
bounded by Boston, Cambridge and Brooldine, is 
susceiDtible of improvements which wonld eclipse 
in beauty the celebrated embankments upon the 
Thames Kiver in London, and could be accom- 
plished at a fraction of the expense. "Will Boston 
begin the improvements? No! not without a 
satisftictory arrangement with Cambridge. Will 
Cambridge and BrooMine undertake the much- 
needed enterprise? Certainly not, unless Boston 
is a willing partner in the expense. One city is 
not going to tax its people to benefit another city, 
if it can avoid it. Well, suppose they could all 
agree to share an equitable proportion of the ex- 
pense? Can they then agree as to what that equi- 
table proportion is — the amount to be expended, 
and the style and particular characteristics of the 
improvement? There is no prospect of such har- 
mony until human nature is re-organized and made 
fit to participate in the joys of the distant mil- 
lennium ; for the residents of Cambridge, most of 
whom do business in Boston, would be first taxed 
at home for that city's proportion of the expense, — 
then they would have to pay another tax upon their 
merchandise and real estate in Boston for that 
city's proportion of the expense ; so that a resident 
of Cambridge would be obliged to pay two taxes, 
while a resident of Boston would pay but one. Is 
this fact likely to contribute to the harmony of 
their calculations? As a large proportion of the 



58 ENLAP.GEMEXT OF THE 

taxes collected in Boston are paid by residents of 
other towns that would not he benefited by an ex- 
penditure of which they would have to bear a con- 
siderable part, of course all such improvements and 
the legislation necessary to authorize them, w^ould 
have to encounter their hostility. And the result 
would be that Charles-river Basin would remain 
in the future, as in the past, though in the heart 
of an immense population, a continued disgrace 
to their intelligence, taste and enterprise. 

This case is an illustration of a principle which 
will apply to all other localities under considera- 
tion. 

^Yho has not, for years past, heard of the " Mil- 
ler-river nuisance," the stench arising from which 
has been strong enough to breed a pestilence in 
the neighborhood surrounding it? The odors from 
this nest of putrefaction are so intense in the hot 
months, that passengers in railroad trains passing 
through it are obliged to hold their breath and 
pinch their noses until the poisoned atmosphere is 
passed. It is still there, however, undisturbed. 
Why? Because it lies on the borders of three 
cities, — Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown. 
Can it be supposed that it would liave been 
permitted to remain where life and health were 
imperiled by its existence, if it had been subject 
to the control of one municipal power? 

But we are told that Boston has territory enough 
now, though shapeless and circumscribed, to ac- 



TEERITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 59 

commodate her growth. That is not true, because 
nearly half of her business men reside outside of 
her limits. There may be acres enoug'h to accom- 
modate them; but there is no power in a republic 
tliAt can force the growth of a city in any particular 
direction. Look at the map which is now before 
you, and see how absurd such a suggestion ap- 
pears. Its growth will be governed by natural 
causes over which man has no control. His duty 
is limited to using and developing the advantages 
which nature presents. Where did the idea obtain 
that the area of a city was to be confined to par- 
ticular limits when there were no natural barriers 
to define them? Why insist upon confining the 
great population of Boston to a territorial area 
less than half as large as many of the towns in the 
state which have a population of only two or three 
thousand? County and town lines should be 
treated as mere fictions w^hen they become a bar to 
public benefits. I have tried to believe that the 
object of government was to provide for the 
public w^elfare; and if that could be better served 
by making the boundary lines of a city ten miles 
square instead of one mile square, then the duties 
of a legislator were determined and clear. 

'Now, let us see in which direction the current 
of population is setting about Boston. The fol- 
lowing table, prepared from the census of 1870, 
show^s that the percentage of increase in the four 
northern adjoining cities and tow^is of Revere, 



60 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

Maiden, Somerville and Cambridge was 43 per 
cent, in five years, while in the four southern ad- 
joining towns of Dorchester, Koxbury, Brookline 
and Brighton, where endeavors are being made to 
force the population by piecemeal-annexation, the 
mcrease in five years was 22 per cent., while in 
Boston, as it existed before the annexation of Rox- 
bury and Dorchester, the increase was but five per 
cent.; thus exhibiting the fact which I desire to 
impress upon your memory that the population in 
the adjoining towns is increasing several hundred 
per cent, faster than in old Boston. 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 



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G2 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

COMMUXICATIOX BETWEEN BOSTON AXD THE NORTH 
BANK OF CHARLES RIVER 

is becoming a very important subject for consider- 
ation. Opinions are entertained by many, that the 
area of Boston should not extend across this river, 
and that appropriate provision can be made for the 
rapid increase of population by the existence of two 
cities — one on the north and another on the south 
of it. It is difficult to discover the reasons for 
such a conclusion; for the cleanest, healthiest, best 
governed and best drained cities in the world — 
like London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Yienna, 
Glasgow and others, embrace both banks of a 
river — and, in most civilized countries, it has 
become a settled conviction that a river should not 
be the boundary line of a city, especially where 
both banks are equally favorable for occupation 
and improvement. It is evident that an extensive 
system of bridges must be maintained across the 
Charles River, because the population is becoming 
dense on both sides of it; and in a few years there 
will be hundreds of thousands residing upon the 
northern banks, who, in pursuit of their vocations 
will be obliged to cross daily to the south side 
where the great centre of business near the deep 
waters of the harbor Avill ever exist. The bridges, 
therefore, must be ample, and, in their construc- 
tion, free from parsimonious influences. Where 
bridges are necessary they ought to be among the 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 63 

most imposing, beautiful and attractive architectu- 
ral features of a great city ; and the future prom- 
ises an extensive field here for the exercise of skill 
in the art of bridge building in connection with 
improvements in the "Charles-river Basin"; for 
every bridge between Boston and the north bank 
of the river, except those crossed by railroads, will 
have to be " reconstructed " and enlarged in a few 
years, to accommodate the growing demands of 
the public. 

Each of the several independent municipalities 
Avith which these different bridges connect, en- 
deavors to avoid as much as possible the expense 
and responsibility of their construction and care, — 
and inasmuch as the channel and boundary line 
which separate these governments, runs close to 
the Boston shore, the chief expense of toaintaining 
these long bridges falls upon the weakest munici- 
pality. Therefore, unless both ends of these public 
structures are under the control of a single power, 
the bridges of Boston are not likely to rank with 
those of London and Paris, which are the pride of 
every beholder. 

The fact is, the bridges about Boston, viewing 
them in the light of usefulness and beauty, — re- 
flect no credit upon those who designed and 
planned their construction. They are a source of 
legislative controversy every year — and are for, 
very far, from being adequate to a proper accom- 
modation of the public; and thus they will remain 



64 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

until the}'^ are subject to the management of one 
instead of many governments. 

COST OF DELAY IX UNITING BOSTON WITH TILE 
CITIES AND TOWNS AKOL^T) IT. 

Mr. President, it is admitted by the opponents 
of this measure that the union of these cities and 
towns must take place at some time, but they think 
the effort to accomphsh it now is premature. 

There is no one who would not regard it as very 
absurd to attempt to maintain independent muni- 
cipal governments, with coordinate powers, in each 
of the sixteen wards of Boston where there is but 
one common interest. Senators can readily im- 
agine the turmoil and local jealousies that would 
follow where each had the power to place a check 
upon the progress of the other. [N^ow, the differ- 
ent cities and towns under consideration bear near- 
ly the same relation to-day toward Boston and each 
other as do the various wards of Boston, and when 
the population is as numerous — as it will be in a 
very few years — will it be less absurd to attempt to 
maintain an independent government over each of 
these sixteen cities and towns, while their indi- 
vidual and combined interests are so fused as 
to make them practically but one community? 
The proposition answers itself. 

If, therefore, the consolidation of these govern- 
ments is to he accomplished at all, with a view 
to general public improvements which shall be in 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 65 

keeping with the S23irit of the time, and with the 
intelhgence of Massachusetts, it should be done 
immediately, for the cost of delay, as has been 
shown in the past history of Boston, is simply enor- 
mous. I will illustrate this by giving the valua- 
tion of 1861 and 1872, showing the increase in 
values in a period of only eleven years in the cities 
and towns which it is now proposed to unite. The 
facts in the following table will be found partic- 
ularly interesting upon this point. 



66 



ENLARGEMENT OF THE 







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TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 67 

It thus appears that in 1861 the total vahiation of 
the real and personal property was $366,297,11 S. 
In 1872 it was $911,012,110, showing the astonish- 
ing increase in eleven years of $514,715,292, or 
about 150 per cent. The value of the real estate 
property in 1861 was $231,387,608, and in 1872 had 
increased to $609,251,902, or considerably more 
than 150 per cent. As park reservations, squares, 
avenues, and streets are to come out of the real 
property, an adequate estimate of the stupendous 
cost of delaying siich improvements may be obtained. 
But it is not alone in the increased value of real 
estate that the danger and cost of delay comes.' 
There are streets now being laid out and built upon 
in these towns and cities which are suggested by 
old cart-paths and rights of way, — as was the case 
in Boston two hundred years ago, — that are twenty- 
five, thirty, and thirty-five feet wide, and upon land, 
too, several feet below the grade of proper drain- 
age, after the style of the Church-street district. 
These, in a few years, after life and health have 
been sacrificed, will have to be widened and the 
grades raised, when the land is worth one hundred 
times more than it now is, — besides the additional 
cost of demolishing and rebuilding structures. 

In considering the subject of providing room for 
public improvements I omit Old Boston and Charles- 
town, because there is no room in them for improve- 
ments, unless it is obtained by demolishing struc- 
tures. Therefore I include Dorchester and Roxbury 



68 EXLARGEMEXT OF THE 

— the four new wards — with the other towns proposed 
for annexation, as the localities where land must be 
taken for parks and broad avenues. The valuation 
in these districts in 1861 Avas $107,757,018. In 
1872 it had grown to $291,085,690, showing an 
average annual increase for a jDcriod of eleven years 
of nearly $17,000,000. From thes« data any one 
can determine approximately, what mil be the an- 
nual cost of delaying those public improvements 
which the future is sure to demand. 

It has been estimated that at least $250,000,000 
of additional taxable property would have been 
created, not merely by enhanced valuation, but 
drawn here from different parts of the world, if the 
improvements which have been suggested had been 
commenced ten years ago, and judiciously prose- 
cuted from that time. This, and the loss of valua- 
ble opportunities, Avhich can never be recovered, 
should be added to other losses arising from 
procrastination in providing for future necessities, 
which are as sure to exist as the inevitable com- 
ing and going of the tides. 

Mr. President, how long will this community — 
renowned for its economical, money-making pro- 
pensities, as well as for its liberahty — continue to 
sacrifice, not only the comforts and luxuries which 
nature has so abundantly spread before them, but 
at the same time cleave to the policy which belittles 
their intelligence, and, while creating no new sources 
of wealth or improvement, forces upon the people 



TERRITOEIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 69 

expenditures so stupendous as hardly to be deter- 
mined by the problems of arithmetic. Is it not 
time that the legislative power of the Common- 
wealth had measured its duties and obligations 
toward the people of her metropolis and those that 
cluster about it? But we are told that a union of 
these cities and towns under one government w^ould 
be productive of a dangerous 

cextealizatiOjST of powee. 

What is understood by centralization of power? 
It is the concentration of power which rightfully 
belongs to the many in the hands of the few. I 
admit that, even under our democratic system, there 
are dangers in this direction against which it is our 
duty to guard, especially when that power may be 
lodged in the hands of the few who may abuse it. 
But the diffusion of this concentrated power among 
the many, to whom it rightfully belongs, and whose 
interests are opposed to its abuse, surely cannot be 
called "centralization"; and that is precisely what 
is proposed to be accomplished by uniting the sev- 
eral municipalities, named in the Resolve, under one 
government. 

Xearly all the residents of these fifteen cities and 
towns have their business places in Boston. Here 
they pay a large proportion of the taxes, and yet 
they have no voice in the government which they 
help to support, and to which they are subject. 
Their interests are, therefore, divided between dif- 



70 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

ferent municipalities — the one where they domicile 
and vote, and the other where they own property 
and transact their business; and a divided interest 
is always a weak one : neither community having the 
benefit of that strength which comes from a unity 
of interest and sentiment, so essential among the 
people in promoting their own prosperity and the 
growth and grandeur of the city of which they con- 
stitute a part. The property of the suburban resi- 
dents, now amounting to between tAvo and three 
hundred million dollars, and all the considerations 
that attach to it, are also wiioll}" subject to the con- 
trol of voters within the limits of Boston, a majority 
of whom may have nothing at stake which will cause 
them to feel any concern as to the quality of the 
municipal government beyond what arises from the 
exercise of the right of suffrag-e which is secured to 
them by the pajmient of a simple poll tax. Eighty- 
seven per cent, of the voters in some of the wards 
of Boston are now of this description. 

The property-holders, business men and artisans 
who pursue their vocations in Boston and reside be- 
yond its limits, are increasing, as has been shown, 
at least one hundred per cent, more rapidly than 
those who domicile within the present boundary 
lines of the city; and thus, in a few years, they 
will have a predominant interest in the business and 
property — which contribute largely to the welfare 
of the entire State — in the city where they cannot 
vote. Therefore, in a few years, the larger interests 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTOX. 71 

and those which require most protection, may be 
entirely without representation in the municipal 
power which controls it. 

I ask Senators to think seriously upon this sub- 
ject, and to judge whether the public welfare and 
the cause of good government in Massachusetts, and 
especially in her metropolis, does not demand that 
this power, now lodged in the hands of the few, 
shall not extend to those to whom the exercise of 
it rightfully belongs, before the mischief arising 
from the present incongruous state of affairs shall 
be irreparable. 

Is it in accordance Avith our organic laws that 
property to the amount of hundreds of millions of 
dollars shall be subject to taxation without as far 
as possible securing to the people from whom it is 
collected the right of representation in the govern- 
ment imposing such tax? It is not the fault of the 
business men of Boston that the growth of the city 
has crowded them beyond its limits. They desire 
to live where their business is, and be subject to one 
system and one uniform rate of taxation. They de- 
mand this as their right, and it is the duty of the 
legislature to secure to them this inalienable privi- 
lege by extending municipal jurisdiction over ter- 
ritory that shall, for this purpose, afford ample 
accommodation for all time, and be convenient and 
suitable for the existence of a city that will keep 
pace with the advancing civilization of the age. 
When the legislature has made such provision, then 



72 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

its duties Avill have been perforaied, and its respon- 
sibilities cease, and not before. 

A fear is expressed by some that such an aggre- 
gation of popuhition, under a single municipal 
power, as is proposed by this measure, will increase 
the danger of 

nUMOKALITY AKD CORRUPTION 

in the administration of the affairs of the city. The 
reasoning that leads to such a fear appears to me 
to be founded in error, — a palpable error. It is the 
density, not the extent, of a city that produces de- 
moi-alization and crime. AYherever a family has a 
grape-vine, or owns and cultivates a flower-bed, there 
a voter is sure to be found who cannot be properly 
enumerated among those who belong to what are 
termed the " dangerous classes." Mechanics w^ho 
live in their own houses are safe citizens, and the 
more of that class that are embraced within the 
municipal limits of Boston the better will be its 
government. Crime hides in dark alle} s and lanes, 
and lurks in the shadows of narrow and crooked 
ways. By studying the plans adopted for the con- 
struction of a great city, one can justly measure the 
degi'ce of effort made by the municipal power con- 
trolling it in promoting the character and morality 
of its people. The influence of openness, of sun- 
light and pure air, of taste and refinement in laying 
out a city, ennobles and elevates the character of its 
inhabitants. The sensitive mind of j^outh takes its 



TEKRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 73 

inclinations and permanent impressions from that 
which is most famihar to its e3^es and ears, and 
the propensity to good or evil of entire commu- 
nities may thus be formed by the nature of 
their surrounding's. Man's enjoyment of rural 
beauty and natural scenery increases with the 
advance of civilization. His higher senses are 
satisfied by elements that not only secure to him 
health and \dgor, but which, at the same time, 
gratify his natural desire for recreative amuse- 
ments. It is, therefore, by such elements that 
he may be lured from those attractions that lead 
to pauperism, vice, and crime.* The quality of 
the governments of London, Paris and Philadel- 
phia were greatly improved by the extensive en- 
largement of their territorial area ; and their aston- 
ishing progress in wealth and pojDulation dates from 
the inauguration of liberal and comprehensive views 
in planning for their future growth and beauty. 
We do not hear of corruption in the administration 
of the municipal afiairs of the cities of London, 



* Mr. Olinstead, in speaking of Central Park, New York, says: — 
" Every Sunday, in summer, from thirty to forty tliousaud persons, on 
an average, enter the jiark on foot, — tlie number on a very tine day being 
sometimes nearly a hundi-ed thcmsand. While most of the grog-shops of 
the city were ett'ectually closed l»y the police under the Excise Law, <ni 
Sunday, the number of visitors to the park was considerably larger than 
before. There was no similar increase at the churches. 

" Shortly after the park first l)ecame attractive, and before any serious 
attemi)t was made to interfere with the Sunday liquor-trade, the head 
keeper told me that he saw among the visitors the })roprietor of one of 
the largest 'saloons' in the city. He accosted him, and expressed some 
surprise. The man replied, ' I came to see what the devil you'd got here 
that took off so many of my Sunday customers.' " 

10 



74 ENLAIIGEMENT OF THE 

Paris and Berlin, — one with a population sixteen 
times, another eiglit times, and the other four times 
as large as Boston. Can it be said that a govern- 
ment equally as pure cannot be maintained under 
our Republican system, where education and intel- 
ligence attain a higher standard ? 

Another objection that is seriously urged against 
the enlargement of Boston as proposed is, tliat the 
city will possess i^ower and wealth greater than all 
the rest of the state. 

Sir, that is an objection wdiich I hope does not 
originate w^ith legislators here. It might possibly 
be excused in an envious wrangle between city and 
country boys in a contest at a game of brag, but 
such a thought should have no place under the 
dome of this capitol, where questions affecting the 
best interests of the people of every portion of 
the Commonw^ealth are to be intelligently passed 
upon by their representatives. Upon what basis is 
it presumed that the people of these different local- 
ities are to be less friendly to general state inter- 
ests because they would be permitted to enjoy 
greater prosperity under municipal regulations that 
will best promote their welfare? In what way will 
the increased wealth and representative power of 
Boston act prejudicially to the interests of Berkshire, 
Barnstable, or Essex? If under the sanction of 
your legislation, the enteriDrise and growth of Bos- 
ton shall draw to the waters of her harbor ten ships 
where one now enters it, will not the towns, har- 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 75 

bors, and pilots of the Capes be correspondingly 
benefited? And if ten trains, where there now is 
but one, should climb the mountains of Berkshire 
loaded with the productions of the West and de- 
scend into the valley of the Connecticut, drawn 
thither by the wealth and commercial demands of 
Boston, will not Berkshire and Hampden be corre- 
spondingly benefited by such increase of trade and 
•traffic? 

Sir, there is not a town or village in the Com- 
monwealth that has not been benefited by the capi- 
tal and enterprise of Boston; and the suggestion 
that an increase of her power and wealth would be 
dangerous to the country towns, is ill-timed, unfor- 
tunate and ungenerous. Has not her capital been 
freely used to build railroads, tunnel mountains and 
increase the internal resources of the entire state, 
thus increasing the wealth and power of every town 
within its limits? If the wealth, population and 
power of Boston could, by process of legislation, be 
increased tenfold, is it not true that the state at 
large would be proportionately benefited? The re- 
lations of the state to her metropolis are repre- 
sented by the relations of the head to the body. 
They are one and inseparable. And I envy not 
the heart and sentiments of the citizen who would 
knowingly lend himself to the creation of jealousies 
between them. 

N^ot wishing further to trench upon your 
patience, I must omit the discussion of the most 



76 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

important subject of sewerage and drainage, as 
well as some questions affecting a system of gov- 
ernment for the metro})orLS which for future pur- 
poses, whether enlarged as proposed or not, would 
need, I presume, some important modifications. 
Once more, for a moment, before concluding, I 
return to history for an example, and find Boston 
situated, with reference to its surroundings, very 
much like the city of London, which has been 
obliged to absorb more than thirty townships and 
boroughs in its suburbs, many of which have now 
become as densely populated as the old city upon 
which they have crowded so close as to obliterate 
all division lines. Fifty-one square miles of the 
city are in the county of Middlesex, thirty-six in 
Surrey, and thirty-five in Kent, making one hun- 
dred twenty-two square miles, and occupying a 
part of three counties, as Boston eventually will. 

Since 1865 the Parliament of England, ever 
zealous, as you know, in guarding the independ- 
ence and local rights of boroughs and townships, 
have, in connection with the rulers of London, been 
engaged in framing an improved system of govern- 
ment for the great metropolis, whose population it 
is estimated will reach eight or ten millions, before 
the close of the present century. And there is 
not a statesman in all England, among the many 
who have given an opinion, or who have testified 
before a commission similar to the one suggested 
in the Kesolve under consideration, who does not 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 77 

assent to the conclusion, that, in order to estabhsh 
an efficient and economical local government, there 
must be one central municipal power, with jurisdic- 
tion over all the districts at present divided. And 
to accomplish this end an act has been substantially 
agreed upon entitled the " Metropolis Municipali- 
ties Bill," or "London Corporation Bill." The 
old independent, disjointed system has become so 
cumbersome and expensive as to be a serious and 
alarming burden to the rate-payers of the districts. 
Such, too, is the experience of the people in and 
around Boston. 

Sir, whoever carefully examines the reports of 
the financial officers of Boston, and of each of the 
cities and towns named in the Resolve before us, 
will be surprised at the magnitude of their public 
debt — which is being rapidly increased — as well as 
the sums annually expended by them for public 
purposes. Much of this money, I hesitate not to de- 
clare, would be better thrown into the sea, because, 
in the absence of any general system applying to 
all, it is expended in such a way as surely to in- 
crease the burdens of taxation hereafter, for the 
reason that what is now being constructed will 
have to be demolished to make room for growing 
necessities not now being provided for.* 



* Under the present system of separate governments in the fifteen 
cities and towns proposed for union with Boston, nearly fifteen hundred 
persons are required to fill their various local offices ; and between four 
and five thousand octavo pages are used to print the accoiuit of their 



78 ENLARGEMENT OF THE 

In Boston, and the cities and towns proposed 
for union, tliere is a population of less tlian lialf a 
million, and yet it costs more to carry on their 
heterogeneous governments than it does that of the 
most beautiful, and, with reference to public im- 
provements, the most progressive and best gov- 
erned city in the world, which contains a popula- 
tion of more than two millions, — showing the cost 
of our local governments, per capita, to be more 
than four times that of the magnificent city of 
Paris. 

The total debt of Boston and the fifteen cities and 
towns named in the Kesolve, as exhibited in the fol- 
lowing table, was, in 1867, $16,987,233.20. Their 
total debt, 1872, was |37,175,960.69; showing an 
increase in a period of five years, since the war — 
when their debt should have been on the decrease — 
of $20,191:,677.49. 



doings in their annnal reports. If nnited nnder one government, in 
place of tills army of officials, tlu^ municipal force would not be increased 
by more than two hundred and fifty men, who would perform the services 
much better ; and certainly, not more than one hundred pages would be 
added to the annual reports of the city. 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 



79 



Table showing the increase in the Debt of the following Cities and 
Towns in a period of Five Years— from 18G7 to 1872. 



Cities and 
Towns. 







c 


■^ 














C3 


s 








^ 


■£ 


Z 






« 




$11 70 


1.5 


40 


12 


00 


16 


00 


14 


00 


10 30 


8 


70 


11 


00 


12 


■50 


12 


00 


13 


.50 


13 


80 


16 


80 


12 


00 


13 


80 


11 


50 




- 



Boston, . 

CliarlestowTi, 

Canil)ridge, 

Chelsea, . 

Somcrvillc, 

W. Roxliury, 

Brooklinc, 

Brighton, 

Watertown, 

Belmont,. 

Arlington, 

Mcdford, 

Maiden, . 

Everett, . 

Revere, . 

Wintlirop, 



$12,998,.5.59 91 

1,476,073 37 

1,161,900 22 

634,000 00 

189,474 00 

No debt. 

77,6.55 96 

87,000 00 

51,400 00 

24,200 00 

68,188 74 

41,700 00 

140,081 00 

.Set off in 1870. 

21,000 00 

16,000 00 



$12 50 

16 50 
15 20 
20 00 

17 40 
10 00 



16 00 
15 .50 
19 50 

18 00 

12 00 

19 00 



$16,987,233 20 



$28,628, 

2,487, 

2,184, 

1,027, 

593, 

288, 

575, 

330, 

66, 

18, 

216, 

270, 

367, 

41, 

44, 

36; 



535 82 
547 05 
584 42 
900 00 
349 00* 
000 00 
000 00 
002 15 
193 00 
250 00 
751 1.5t 
800 OOt 
696 96t 
451 14t 
,000 00 
,000 00 



$15,629 

1,011 

1,022 

393 

403 

288 

487 

243 

14 

De 

148, 

229 

227 

41 

23 

20 



,975 91 
473 68 
684 20 
,800 00 
,875 00 
000 00 
344 04 
,002 15 
,793 00 
crease. 
,562 41 
,100 00 
,615 96 
,451 14 

,000 00 

,000 00 



$37,175,960 69 



$20,194,677 49 



* To 1871 only. 



t A part of this sum is for water supply. 



"What is there to show for this vast expenditure, 
which has more than doubled this great debt in so 
brief a period? Have there been any pubhc im- 
provements other than those which should have 
kept pace with the increase of population, and 
therefore paid for as they went, from ordinary 
revenues? If so where are they? Does a con- 
tinuance of the present system promise economy 
and progress in those important public works in 
which we are so lamentably deficient? 

Sir, Avhile the Commonwealth is wisely spending 
millions upon millions to tunnel mountains and 
create new avenues for feeding the business and 
commerce of her metropolis, and placing it nearer 



80 exlarCte:ment of the 

to the productive regions of the continent, not one 
step has she taken toward making appropriate pro- 
vision, even for the natural expansion of her 
metro2:>olis, to say nothing of that more raj^id 
growth which should be pioneered by noble con- 
ception, progressive legislation, and public enter- 
prise. 

In the revolutionary period Boston was first in 
unportance in the new-born republic; and, in my 
judgment she might, under the judicious exercise 
of state and municipal power, have maintained her 
supremacy in wealth and population, to the present 
time. But for lack of administrative foresight in 
creating home attractions, and in encouraging home 
enter^^rises, her young men, and business men, and 
her capital, have been forced to seek other fields, 
to build up other cities, and develop the wealth of 
other states. 

"What is the matter? Have the people been so 
intent upon the accumulation of wealth by pursuing 
the usages of the past, that they have failed to dis- 
cover the progressive character of the age, or to 
remember that the sea upon which they are 
smoothly sailing into the unmeasured future may 
contain reefs and shoals which cannot be safely 
passed without soundings, observations, and calcu- 
lations? 

Sir, we have delved in by-gones long enough 
to be familiar with their lessons, and that is all that 



TERRITORIAL AREA OF BOSTON. 81 

we should care to know about them. The past is 
finished, — the untouched future only is before us. 
Is it not time that we had paused to take bearings, 
and learn in which direction the true path of prog- 
ress lies? Looking down upon the present we 
find scattered over the territory described in the 
Resolve before the Senate, Boston broken into 
municipal fragments, — and while there is but one 
common interest affecting all, independent govern- 
ments are maintained in each which are in conflict 
one with the other. Under such an incongruous 
system there can be no harmony or method, while 
both are so essential to public prosperity. I wish 
here to appeal to your unbiased judgments to sub- 
stantiate this declaration — that becoming progress 
in public improvements, economy in official 
administration, sound sanitary conditions, and con- 
tentment among the people, are utterly impossible 
unless, for general purposes, one homogeneous 
system of government shall embrace them all. 
Under the guidance of such a government the 
ambition of the people, stirred by fresh incentives, 
would move forward to the achievement of new 
glories in the fields of progress and civilization. 
Her business men and capital would come back 
again, and her young men would be content to 
build upon foundations illuminated by the brighter 
destinies of their native metropolis. Thus under 

the influence of ideas which should lead the progress 
11 



82 ENLARGEMENT OF THE AREA OF BOSTON. 

of Republican civilization, Boston may yet become 
the first city on the American continent, — the 
favorite resort of those in search of education, 
science, thrift in business pursuits, and all that is 
healthful, beautiful and grand in nature and art. 



APPENDIX. 



Professor Holtou, who has devoted much attention to 
civic improvements, and particularly to modes of rapid 
transit and the transmission of power through tubes, 
writes me as follows ; — 

" In your speech I think you have hardly made enough of im- 
provements in the near future. Let us talce "first the transmission of 
power. Steam is a perfect vehicle for it. Nothing is needed but a 
boiler and fire at one end of a tu1)e and an engine at the other. You 
can turn a faucet and instantly start your machinery. But there is 
an enormous waste. Every wave of heat that escapes through the 
walls of the tu]3e is a loss of power ; and as soon as the temperature 
of the interior of the tube falls to 212° no power is left. Every time 
your engine stops it cools ; and jjower is expended in reheating it to 
a temperature much over 212° before it will work to its full capacity. 
The waste is proportioned to the distance between boiler and engine, 
and every moment's delay is a loss. 

" The true method for the transmission of power is by compressed 
AIR. Immense steam-engines, miles away and miles apart, convert 
the power stored in coal into compressed air. They may be aided by 
the moon (tide-mills) , and by the sun (wind-mills), and the owners of 
them can sell to the city the power which they generate. No street 
that should liave air ' laid on' could fail of being thronged with man- 
ufactures—often such as need but a tenth of a horse-power, or need 
power but a tenth of the time — unless the merchant should overbid 
the artisan. For elevators it has this advantage, that lowering reverses 
the course of the air, and actually throws power back into the tube. 
Even where not needed for days together, it can be had in large quan- 
tities and at a moment's warning. It might be let on to fire-engines 
the instant that they had reached the fire. It could open a drawbridge, 
thrust a vessel through, shut it again, and lapse into repose and cost- 
lessness. Its pure breath, instead of tainting the workshop, refreshes 
it. It is transmitted without loss, and can be stored in reservoirs like 
gas and water. 

" But by far the most important use of compressed air would be on 
local railways, subterranean or elevated. Au extravagant head of 
power would be let on at leaving a station, and a car would near the 
next at a rate of sixty miles an hour ; then the speed would be ar- 
rested and stopped simply by reversing the engine and condensing 
air back into the tank. The waste and wear of braking up is what 
necessitates low speed on way trains. We could hope to make tliirty 



84 APPENDIX. 

miles an hour, stops excluded, or a mile in four minutes, including 
stops. The passengers would go from an eighth of a mile to half 
the diameter of the city at a uniform rate of three cents, or even less. 
The great parks would be at the termini of these radiating roads, and 
the out<;rmost parts of the area they should reach would he as valual)le 
for residences as Commonwealth Avenue is to-day. But the outlay 
of altering a street, already Iniilt, and far too naiTow, to suit elevated 
railways, is something enormous. As to the choice between elevated 
or underground railroads, I do not hesitate an instant. The average 
thickness of a city, from cellar-tloor to roof, is some eighty feet. The 
traOic of the streets is only ten feet alaove its lower plane, and a sub- 
terranean road necessitates climl)ing tlie moment you leave it. The 
value of each storj- diminishes as you rise alcove the sidewalk. Now 
if you will put a second sidewalk fifteen feet above the first, and re- 
move to that all the car tra\'el, most of the i^edestrians would seek 
the same level. Ladies who went sh()2)ping woidd not, if they could 
reach the cars without descending to the ground, go near it once in 
all their trip. We should have a retail city over the wholesale city. 
The second storj- would be more valuable than the first, and an 
additional value would Ije given to each floor above. 

" Tlie ' Rows ' of Chester, England, illustrate the requisite sty'le of 
building, and we have a single examijle of it in the Congregational 
House, corner of Beacon and Somerset streets, Boston. The near 
approach of the lower story to the centre of the sti'eet does not dimin- 
ish the light of the windows ojiposite. The wall of the first story (in- 
variably of glass and iron) would support the centre of the track. 
The loading and unloading of carts would little incommode the busy 
throng of passers, which always increases with the growth of the city. 
The present size of London would be almost impossible with all tlft 
passing on one level. 

" Density at the centre is what limits the growth of a city, as it does 
of a palm. When no more new and tender fibi'cs can penetrate the 
impacted, hide-bound interior of the palm, growth is arrested. When 
the centre of a city becomes an iuextrieal)le vortex, as now in New 
York, business seeks to escape from the annoyance to more conven- 
ient seats. The question of the ultimate size of a city is then entirely 
a question of transit. 

"On this problem New Yoi'k is now laboring, but its mechanical 
exigencies are as nothing compared with the legal obstructions of 
rivals. London, more fortunate, has made both the upper and lower 
schemes a .success to the passenger; though it is asserted that Avhile the 
subterranean roads earn no dividends, the elevated ones are doing a 
good business. The introduction of the best system into Boston, will 
be like the touch of Ithuriers spear. London, on the edge of an 
island and on the banks of a small river, has not the natural advan- 
tages of Boston, with its grand harbor and a continent to contribute 
to it. A century of wise government, with the application to city- 
transit of the latest improvements in the conveyance of ])ersons, goods 
and messages, cannot fail to jjlace our metropolis far beyond anything 
that earth has yet seen." 



t 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 077 943 A 







